[Boot-Repair] Graphical tool to repair the PC boot in one click

[matej-veis]

Hi there,
this is my link http://paste.ubuntu.com/7103013/.

The sda is a Hitachi HTS543232A7A384 320GB
I can't boot Windows 8.1 after I tried to install Linux on new SSD through the same computer. It's on partition 2 of sda. Strangely enough it seems that it's 0X07 Intel Matrix RAID Member though I don't remember setting it up in this way. All the files should still be there as when I boot ReDo Backup and use Recover Data feature it extracts the data in like 200+ folders in random sequences with random names. Is there a way to access it again? Or at least a more constructive way to get hold of the data than sorting through thousands of files?

Thanks

Mat

[oldfred]

@DaNipper
You are showing two efi partitions on sdb. You can only have one per hard drive. Use gparted and remove boot flag from sdb5.

I do prefer to have an efi partition on every drive, so each drive can be configured to boot without any other drives, but as long as you have repair CD or flash drives or live installer for the current version of every operating system you have installed, you should be ok.

You also are showing RAID devices in UEFI menu? Is your system also RAID?
If you can directly boot the Ubuntustudio entry in UEFI menu, undo the backup & rename of the Windows efi file. That is only for those 'buggy' UEFI where vendor has modified UEFI to only boot Windows. And then you can only boot Windows from grub menu. With the rename both Ubuntustudio & Windows in UEFI should boot grub menu.
To undo & to rename files to their original names, you just need to tick the "Restore EFI backups" option of Boot-Repair.

@briktoo
Is this an older computer with a new larger hard drive. Some old BIOS do not boot from very large / (root) partitions. Often better anyways to have a smaller / of 20 or 25GB and use rest of drive as /home or a data partition. I would shrink sda1 and use Boot-Repair to do a full un-install and reinstall of grub2. While it shows you have an fstab, Boot-Repair did not list it? Is it correct. Or how did you clone and are UUIDs the same as partition?

sudo blkid -c /dev/null -o list

sudo cat /etc/fstab

You also have one drive as MBR(msdos) and the other drive as gpt(GUID). Eventually you may want all drives to be gpt.

GPT Advantages (older but still valid) see post#2 by srs5694:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1457901
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...antages_of_GPT


@matej-veis
It looks like Boot-Repair could not mount partitions either, so difficult to see what issues are.
Was system a Windows 8 with Intel SRT? That is seen as RAID. Sometimes just turning off SRT in UEFI/BIOS and changing to AHCI mode for drives lets system be seen.
But if you left Windows 8 in hibernation that causes all sorts of issues.
If not SRT, then it may be BIOS setting is in RAID? Adding RAID does add RAID meta-data to a drive that creates issues as Desktop installer does not have RAID drivers like a server install. Usually thought Boot-Repair will add the RAID drives to mount partitions??

[Mike_Baynton]

Here's what I've got: http://paste.ubuntu.com/7105272/

Installed fresh image of 12.04 server, didn't boot. BIOS error "DISK BOOT FIALURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER." Booted from a 12.04 desktop USB stick and ran the recommended boot-repair, but still same error. The complication is surely coming from the fact that the intended boot device (/dev/sda in the above logs) is a compact flash card attached to the system via a Syba UDMA-compatible IDE to CF adapter card. BIOS sees the CF card just fine as the primary master on the 1st IDE channel and lists it as the 1st boot device, and it seems to be working great in all respects except for not being bootable. Help would be appreciated. Thanks!

[DaNipper]

@DaNipper
You are showing two efi partitions on sdb. You can only have one per hard drive. Use gparted and remove boot flag from sdb5.

I do prefer to have an efi partition on every drive, so each drive can be configured to boot without any other drives, but as long as you have repair CD or flash drives or live installer for the current version of every operating system you have installed, you should be ok.

You also are showing RAID devices in UEFI menu? Is your system also RAID?
If you can directly boot the Ubuntustudio entry in UEFI menu, undo the backup & rename of the Windows efi file. That is only for those 'buggy' UEFI where vendor has modified UEFI to only boot Windows. And then you can only boot Windows from grub menu. With the rename both Ubuntustudio & Windows in UEFI should boot grub menu.
To undo & to rename files to their original names, you just need to tick the "Restore EFI backups" option of Boot-Repair.

Thanks, Fred. I appreciate the help.

I removed the boot flag from sdb5, and I did the "Restore EFI backups" option. When I rebooted, the Ubuntu Studio entry booted to the GRUB command line. If I go back to the BIOS page (of whatever a UEFI screen is) and select Windows, it brings up the Windows Boot Manager page with two entries for ubuntustudio. When I select the first one it says the OS couldn't be loaded because it couldn't find \EFI\ubuntustudion\shim64.efi. When I select the 2nd entry, it says it couldn't find \NST\AutoNeoGrub0.mbr (which I think is a leftover from trying to fix the issue with EasyBCD).

Here is the boot-info output: http://paste.ubuntu.com/7105720/

Any ideas? I also used the backup option when I first started using Boot-Repair. Is there anyway to restore that backup? At least that will allow me to get back into Windows.

Thanks again for your help.

[sudodus]

Portable installed system for UEFI and old style BIOS

1. I installed the boot-info-script from the repos into Ubuntu 12.04.4

Boot Info Script 0.60    from 17 May 2011

It seems old. Should I get a newer version, or does it tell what you need to know?

http://ubuntuone.com/704MJrpEaxktCD9iSuSfzM

2. This system works in my Toshiba Satellite Pro C850 19W in UEFI mode.

It sits in a USB 3 pendrive, and I would like to run it also in standard old-style BIOS mode, or if that would be easier, run another system in BIOS mode. From the Ubuntu desktop 64-bit iso file it is possible to make a DVD/USB drive that can boot in BIOS as well as UEFI.

Questions:

- Is it possible to make an installed system that can boot in BIOS as well as UEFI mode?

- In that case, how should I change this system (described by the boot-info-script) to make it boot in BIOS mode without losing the ability to boot in UEFI mode?

[oldfred]

@Mike_Baynton
i really do not know LVM & servers. But what I see looks ok. Grub is in MBR and you have a separate /boot partition with grub & kernel.
Error message seems to be from BIOS, so with your configuration will the device be bootable?

@DaNipper
Something with grub must not be correct. I might try the full uninstall/purge and total reinstall of grub from Boot-Repair.
Boot-Repair cannot parse Windows BCD. Any entries in Windows are from EasyBCD, and you need to use bcdEdit or EasyBCD to edit BCD to remove extra entries.
You show these in UEFI menu.


Line 610 All entries line 597 thru 617
Boot000C* Windows Boot Manager HD(2,1f4800,82000,3456751d-d5b5-41e5-80f6-31d851318e12)File(EFIMicrosoftBootbootmgfw.efi)WIN DOWS.........x...B.C.D.O.B.J.E.C.T.=.{.9.d.e.a.8.6 .2.c.-.5.c.d.d.-.4.e.7.0.-.a.c.c.1.-.f.3.2.b.3.4.4.d.4.7.9.5.}...s................
Boot000D* Lenovo Recovery System ACPI(a0341d0,0)PCI(1f,2)03120a00010000000000HD(3,2 76800,1f4000,65e28a69-e420-43a1-b009-43e80d721c97)File(EFIMicrosoftBootlrsBootMgr.efi)
Boot000E* ubuntustudio HD(2,1f4800,82000,3456751d-d5b5-41e5-80f6-31d851318e12)File(EFIubuntustudiogrubx64.efi)
Boot000F Setup

Both of these are your Windows boot from grub, not sure why Boot-Repairs says recovery
Boot-Repair's entry
menuentry "Windows UEFI recovery bootmgfw.efi"
os-prober's entry
menuentry "Windows Boot Manager (UEFI on /dev/sdb2)"

You also are showing dual video. Do you control Which video it boots with? With nVidia you need nomodeset, but Intel usually needs other boot parameters.

How to set NOMODESET and other kernel boot options in grub2 - both BIOS liveCD & grub first boot ( also UEFI with grub)
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1613132
Possible boot options suggested by ubfan1
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...0#post12871710

@sudodus
The live installer is a BIOS or UEFI boot. But not sure if you can configure grub in MBR & efi partition to both work. I do not think you can install grub-pc(BIOS) and grub-efi(UEFI) at the same time.
Perhaps because you ran the older boot script it does not show efi files. Newer version added that. Try Boot-Repair as it has the latest (still not new) boot script and adds a lot of extra info.
Not sure if you have the efi partition in fstab and boot in BIOS mode if it has issues. It may just reinstall grub on major updates in UEFI mode?
Some have said efi files can just be copied and will still work. But I do not know how grub in efi folder then finds your install. Grub in BIOS mode has core.img which I think has the extra info on where to find grub.cfg.
I just might backup efi partition, and use Boot-Repair or manually install grub-pc. Then see if UEFI still shows efi boot option as well as a BIOS/CSM boot option.
Some have also added a second grub.cfg in the efi partition with just one configfile entry to help grub in efi find install.

configfile (hd0,gpt3)/boot/grub/grub.cfg

One user posted this:

found that putting grub.cfg into /EFI/ubuntu works, even when grubx64.efi is in /EFI/Boot

[sudodus]

@sudodus
The live installer is a BIOS or UEFI boot. But not sure if you can configure grub in MBR & efi partition to both work. I do not think you can install grub-pc(BIOS) and grub-efi(UEFI) at the same time.
Perhaps because you ran the older boot script it does not show efi files. Newer version added that. Try Boot-Repair as it has the latest (still not new) boot script and adds a lot of extra info.
Not sure if you have the efi partition in fstab and boot in BIOS mode if it has issues. It may just reinstall grub on major updates in UEFI mode?
Some have said efi files can just be copied and will still work. But I do not know how grub in efi folder then finds your install. Grub in BIOS mode has core.img which I think has the extra info on where to find grub.cfg.
I just might backup efi partition, and use Boot-Repair or manually install grub-pc. Then see if UEFI still shows efi boot option as well as a BIOS/CSM boot option.
Some have also added a second grub.cfg in the efi partition with just one configfile entry to help grub in efi find install.

configfile (hd0,gpt3)/boot/grub/grub.cfg

One user posted this:

found that putting grub.cfg into /EFI/ubuntu works, even when grubx64.efi is in /EFI/Boot

Thanks oldfred,

I was afraid, that there is no easy way to configure grub in MBR & efi partition to both work. There is a reason why the desktop installer is made the way it is.

I tested to install BIOS-grub, and it made the [same] Ubuntu work in BIOS mode. But it also stopped working in UEFI. I was able to repair that with Boot-Repair, so that it works in UEFI, but it also stopped working in BIOS. So grub seems to be either-or (not both-and which would be nice).

Browsing the internet with the key phrase syslinux booting other partition I have found several relevant links, that indicate that it should be possible to chainload from the installer to an installed system. I have no experience with these things, so there is a steep learning curve, but if I have time enough, it might be possible to solve along this outline:

1. A small FAT32 partition with the Ubuntu desktop installer 'installed' using usb-creator-kde (with persistence if stand-alone, in this case just live).

2. A larger partition with the installed 64-bit Ubuntu system.

3. A small swap partition.

4. Chainloading from syslinux to the installed 64-bit Ubuntu system for BIOS.

5. A rather straight-forward menuentry in grub to the installed 64-bit Ubuntu system for UEFI.

*. I don't know if it is possible or necessary to have a GPT partition table and the relevant mini-partitions for BIOS boot and UEFI boot. Maybe those things are fixed by the live system's configuration. I can find out by trial and error unless someone already knows ...

Do you think it is feasible?

[oldfred]

@sudodus
You will have to have gpt partitioning. UEFI requires gpt and Ubuntu will boot from BIOS with gpt also. It just is with UEFI it uses the efi partition and with BIOS it uses bios_grub partition.
After you installed grub-pc for BIOS boot, what kind of error did you get from UEFI boot? grub-rescue? All the grub efi files should still have been in efi partition.

[sudodus]

@sudodus
You will have to have gpt partitioning. UEFI requires gpt and Ubuntu will boot from BIOS with gpt also. It just is with UEFI it uses the efi partition and with BIOS it uses bios_grub partition.
After you installed grub-pc for BIOS boot, what kind of error did you get from UEFI boot? grub-rescue? All the grub efi files should still have been in efi partition.

The computer did not consider it bootable at all and defaulted to searching for a netboot system.

[oldfred]

@sudodus
I would have expected that UEFI would have seen efi partition with some efi files and offered to boot, even if not really workable.
But you may have had to turn on UEFI boot mode in UEFI/BIOS or turn off BIOS/CSM boot. Some auto switch and some do not.
Did grub-pc install do something to efi partition? You need boot flag on efi partition for it to be seen as efi bootable partition and BIOS would not need any boot flag.